Pathfinder Encounters: Lair of the Manticore CR 5

I found this journal still clutched in the hand of the poor sap that had been writing in it. Stabbed in the back down the alley out the back of The Tusked Ram he was. Everything he had was taken apart from this! He had it in his hand and clutched to his chest. The thugs must have been in a hurry because they simply cut the pack from his back and fleeced it.

Sure, it is just a little book but it has this map in it see. Sure it says something about a manticore, but how do we really know there was one there? After all, he had the time to make his way all the way around the caves and map them. See the treasure chest? It seems huge! Could be one of the lost treasure hoards of Captain Fenthick. He was meant to have left his treasures hidden all the way up the river, and see that there, it faces the river. I am heading up tomorrow and I heard you are a keen climber. So, are you interested?

Pathfinder Encounters – Lair of the Manticore CR 5

Sure, if you are signed up to my Google+ you will have seen this map before as I released it last week. The first of the maps in my new journal but the secret is, I always wanted this one to be one of the Pathfinder Encounters. I am a lover of manticores. They have fired my interest ever since the first time I came across the creature! In fact, my third tattoo will likely be a manticore down my left arm 🙂

So here is the encounter. At the heart of it is a manticore that lives in a lair that somebody once hid some treasure in the cavern. Perhaps they came back for it and the manticore got them or perhaps something else happened. The treasure and the hook that is used to get the players to the site is up to you but it could happen exactly as per the flavour text listed above.

Of course there is a 100′ climb to overcome too. It is a fairly easy climb though with platy of handholds. Likely a DC 10 climb at best and DC 15 at worst. Also there is the opening to the flooded cavern below this set of caves. What lays down there? I would like to think that there is a larger connected group of caverns down there all under water. Perhaps it is the home of a group of Undine, or Merfolk or even Locatah!

The Manticore is a standard Manticore from the Pathfinder Bestiary and the statistics can be viewed on the Paizo Pathfinder PRD. Just click that link and you will be at the reference point you need to be at. As always, if you use it, please come back and tell me how it runs! Remember that the manticore is a mobile creature and if it is alerted to the player presence early it may take to wing and attack them as they scramble the cliff. Or say if it was just returning to its lair after a successful hunt while the players are halfway up the cliff face would make for an awesome encounter. Keep on rolling!

So, after three sessions of sandboxy roleplay, I finally got my party of monster PCs to actually go to the Manticore’s Lair. I added some flavor: a supposedly abducted Lamia that needed rescue, a fanatical band of wemic cultist who have recently decided to worship my mytjic manticore because he’s awesome, a wasteland that used to be an ancient Forrest that Manny-Axe-War (my mythic Manticore) used for a hunting ground. The party approached the cliff, encountered the Wemics and all hell (all of the hells I tell you) broke loose when the ensuing battle roused Manny & the Lamia… Was in fact, the manticore’s mate.

Turned your CR7 into a sliding CR6 to CR9.

Party won, killed Manny and discovered that the Lamia had been under a powerful charm spell (ha!).

Thanks again for the hook!

Next week they get to search the Lair which is full of traps now because I’m trying the entire area in with your Pharoah’s Tomb mini quest.